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MaddAddam

(MaddAddam #3)

Margaret Atwood (Goodreads Author)

really liked it 4.00 · Rating details · 55,382 ratings · 5,022 reviews

A man-made plague has swept the earth, but a small group survives, along with the green-eyed Crakers – a gentle species bio-engineered to replace humans. Toby, onetime member of the Gods Gardeners and expert in mushrooms and bees, is still in love with street-smart Zeb, who has an interesting past. The Crakers’ reluctant prophet, Snowman-the-Jimmy, is hallucinating; Amanda ...more

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Hardcover, Deckle Edge, 394 pages

Published September 3rd 2013 by Nan A. Talese (first published August 29th 2013)

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Jun 02, 2013 Paquita Maria Sanchez rated it liked it

Shelves: literature, canada

Oh, dear. Okay. It's only fair that I say something about this novel since karen was kindly enough to gift me the ARC so I could read it before it came out, but you should know that a large part of me doesn't even want to discuss this because like you, I went to grade school and had it drilled in my head that if you can't think of something nice to say, you shouldn't say anything at all. I have of course strayed wildly from that path as a grownup-ish humanoid, but this is Margaret Atwood we're ...more

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Jul 28, 2013 Moira Russell rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: ebook, on-the-paperwhite, gifts

Yeah, that was also fantastic. I cried buckets at the end. Jesus.

O&C is the male story -- all sex and longing, invention and death (look, I'm just telling you what I see). Flood is like the women's side -- lots more better women characters, but also lots of sexual violence. Friendship, salvation, vulnerability, hedgewitchery.

(And lots of hot pink. Trust me, it works.)

But MaddAddam is more like -- the male story again, but the woman observing and commenting on it, and it's entwined with her ...more

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Aug 28, 2013 Daniel Kukwa rated it really liked it

Shelves: other-sf-fantasy, canadian-lit

At first, I was disappointed. Where were the epic final confrontations? Where was the catharsis, after two novels of terrifying, complex build-up? A third of the way through, it hit me: none of that actually matters to the novel. The entire "final battle" is almost an afterthought, compared to the main themes of hope rising from the ashes, the power of love & loyalty, and the fact that human civilization adapts...spitting proudly in the eye of dystopia. This is a story about "telling" the ...more

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Aug 09, 2013 Emily rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: post-apocalyptic-dystopian

I have never been this unimpressed with a Margaret Atwood novel. MaddAddam is a tedious slog through the events of Oryx and Crake - again. While this technique worked incredibly well in The Year of the Flood, providing context for much of the events and letting the female characters flip Jimmy's story on its head, MaddAddam totally fails to provide anything new or interesting in its backstory.

You might think that, now that all of the characters have met up after the end of the world, there I have never been this unimpressed with a Margaret Atwood novel. MaddAddam is a tedious slog through the events of Oryx and Crake - again. While this technique worked incredibly well in The Year of the Flood, providing context for much of the events and letting the female characters flip Jimmy's story on its head, MaddAddam totally fails to provide anything new or interesting in its backstory.

You might think that, now that all of the characters have met up after the end of the world, there would be some forward momentum in the present-day. You would be wrong. If you're interested in what happens to Jimmy, the erstwhile protagonist of the first novel, or any of the characters from the second novel - Toby, Ren, or Amanda - then you are going to be sorely disappointed. Toby's arc during this book is particularly terrible, but Ren and Amanda only escape this fate because they spend most of their time offscreen. Jimmy spends most of the novel in a coma. In fact, the entire plot of the present-day revolves around the Crakers and the Maddaddamites defending themselves from two rogue Painballers. It's just as boring as it sounds.

Even if you're reading MaddAddam to be further immersed in the dystopian world that Margaret Atwood created in Oryx and Crake, you'll probably still be disappointed. 75% of this novel takes place in the past, rehashing Zeb's life in the pleeblands and his relationship with Adam One. There are a few interesting new additions to the world, but the vast majority of Zeb's activities are tied to the other books' plot lines; his story just retells what you already know.

Finally, the writing in this book is just plain bad. There are a couple moments where the prose recalls the first two books, but they are few and far between. The metaphors have all been done before. The characters are flat and static. The Craker story sections are beyond painful. The pacing is puzzling. It's just one big mess.

Because I can't keep it all spoiler-free, here are some things I thoroughly loathed about this novel:

(view spoiler)

I don't know if it's possible to only read the first two books in this trilogy and resist reading the third. Maybe I would have appreciated this more if I had read it immediately after The Year of the Flood, but I doubt it. I really felt like this volume added absolutely nothing. There's no resolution, no catharsis ... I closed this feeling relieved that I was finally done. If you're strong enough to resist, don't read this one. ...more

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Mar 11, 2013 Annet rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: wilderness-books-can-usa, weird, literature-pure, fantasy, dark, apocalyptic, favorite-author, age-ing

I was so excited about this last book of the MaddAddam trilogy and I saw the book in Waterstones couple of weeks in hardcover. I could not resist.... and read!

I read the reviews and saw that some readers were somewhat disappointed about this final MaddAddam. I really don't care.... I am amazed still by the content, imagination and cleverness of this story and this great writer.

Yes the first book was amazing, mindboggling, what's happening here... the second book shocking and up close & ...more

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Apr 14, 2016 Fabian rated it really liked it

I have completion anxiety, or whatever it's called. If it's a trilogy of books we are talking about, YES, it WILL take me YEARS to complete. Thankfully, Maddaddam book three immediately reminds you of why you fell in love with Atwood's postapocalyptic world in the first place.

It has parts of "Oryx and Crake" & "Year of the Flood" in it... the former a sprawling genesis of the apocalypse, the latter a more personal tale of what it takes to survive it. Maddaddam contains a mixture of both ...more

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Mar 25, 2019 Sean Barrs the Bookdragon rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: 2-star-reads, sci-fi

Some questions are best left unanswered, and some endings are better off unwritten because sometimes the question itself is what makes the piece so extraordinary. Revealing what happens next could only ever be disappointing.

This felt like a massive overwrite. Atwood is only joining the dots here, piecing together the threads of storytelling and character arcs left open from the previous two instalments (that were only ever vaguely related to each other.) It’s like a forced conclusion as it’s ...more

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Jun 24, 2014 Lisa rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, margaret-atwood

Ok, MaddAddam!

Let me say straight away that I don't like sequels that much. But then again, I didn't like dystopian fiction at all before I read "Oryx and Crake" some 10 years ago. After "The Year of the Flood" came out 4 years ago, I found myself unable to wait for the paperback version, and I didn't even consider waiting when "MaddAddam" was announced.

I don't know what I expected and I think I should probably re-read the first two books to grasp all ideas in MaddAddam, but my instant feeling Ok, MaddAddam!

Let me say straight away that I don't like sequels that much. But then again, I didn't like dystopian fiction at all before I read "Oryx and Crake" some 10 years ago. After "The Year of the Flood" came out 4 years ago, I found myself unable to wait for the paperback version, and I didn't even consider waiting when "MaddAddam" was announced.

I don't know what I expected and I think I should probably re-read the first two books to grasp all ideas in MaddAddam, but my instant feeling is that the third one is the best in the series, for a reason I didn't anticipate at all.

The first two definitely show off more action from different angles, but MaddAddam gives the philosophical background to the story. It is amazing to watch a new civilisation emerge, including creation stories that start out as random bedtime whispers without any claim on accuracy and then gain power and consequently truth. I love the parts when the artificially created humanoid Crakers evolve from their vegetable state into something more complicated - using words, written and spoken, to build a new religion. Names gain power: You can't change Snowman-the-Jimmy to Jimmy-the-Snowman, as Toby realises when talking to the little Craker boy Blackbeard.

This book is not about humanity gone berserk destroying our planet anymore, it is about creating a world based on our needs: food, shelter, love, sex, stories. It is about adaptation and evolution, survival of those able to find a niche - not necessarily the physically strongest of the species, but definitely the most versatile. Zeb survives multiple death threats by changing shape and function, and that is symptomatic for all characters. Survival of the adaptable, a Darwinist take on life, but not materialistic alone, since the human need for myth, ritual and love is pointed out over and over again.

I can see why MaddAddam doesn't appeal to everyone - being a very slow and quiet read compared to the first two books - but as for me, I was more deeply satisfied with this story and would put it on one shelf with The Handmaid's Tale.

Having said that, you have to read the first two books to get a feeling for the strange world Toby and Zeb and the Crakers are moving in! Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood are the Genesis stories of MaddAddam, and like it or not, to understand the building up of the new civilization, you have to know where it is coming from.

Postscript: As I am currently trying to figure out whether or not I like science fiction, and why some of it still seems like utter trash, while other books make me laugh and cry - I think I have come closer to an answer: I definitely like the reflection on society and where it is headed, but I can't be bothered with the shallow adventures and fights between half-human antiheroes. there has to be a social question involved, which is why books like Feed or The Last Book in the Universe appeal to me. They point out the dangers in our society to a younger audience and open up a discussion on language, community and values. Feed features a press release from the government, explaining in detail that the boss didn't mean to hurt anyone when he said "Big Shithead", and that it in fact was an American idiom expressing respect. Opening the Economist this morning, I find scarily similar reports, twisting language to extreme absurdities. Margaret Atwood works with the same kind of idea. The best example in my opinion is when Snowman mutters "Oh Fuck", and the confused Crakers ask about the meaning. Being used to worship anything preceded by "Oh", they receive the explanation that "Oh Fuck" is someone you call for help when you are particularly upset. This became an instant running gag between me and a friend. "Is it time to call on the great deity yet?" we would ask. It is a book for fans of myth-making.

This of course is a very personal reflection, and probably not at all representative.

It's just what it is - for me! And that is why I liked MaddAddam so much while others have said with some right that it was superfluous. ...more

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Oct 04, 2013 Oriana rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-2013, zeitgeist-y

before reading: May I tell you about my borderline-psychotic quest to score an advance proof of this book?

It involved contacting literally every single person on GR who had reviewed this pre-publication, in order to prostrate myself and beg them to loan me their copy. Of those who dignified my crazy request with a response, a few had been given advance editions on the promise of never sharing them, and the rest had read it in e-galleys, which fuck that. And anyway, those like disappear as soon ...more

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Mar 19, 2013 Jen rated it liked it

Shelves: fiction, scifi-fantasy-dystopia

I wish I hadn't been so disappointed in this book. Why was I so disappointed in this book? I finished it Saturday night and haven't really been able to gather the brain power to assign any words to this. Yesterday I read though some of the reviews and found many of the things that bothered me articulated much more clearly by other reviewers here:

Badass Toby became lovesick high school girl Toby, whose entire identity seems to grow from her love interest. WTF feminist writer Margaret Atwood?

I wish I hadn't been so disappointed in this book. Why was I so disappointed in this book? I finished it Saturday night and haven't really been able to gather the brain power to assign any words to this. Yesterday I read though some of the reviews and found many of the things that bothered me articulated much more clearly by other reviewers here:

Badass Toby became lovesick high school girl Toby, whose entire identity seems to grow from her love interest. WTF feminist writer Margaret Atwood?

Jimmy. Snowman. Snowman the Jimmy. Whatever you want to call him. We never even saw a glimmer of a return to his complex, fascinating character from Oryx and Crake in this book. (view spoiler)

The Crakers. With Jimmy comatose as the book opens, Toby takes over the duty of telling them the stories to explain their place in the world and the things that are happening in it. At first the way you hear these stories will be charming. You'll chuckle, even. You can just hear the unwritten childlike questions posed by the Crakers! Oh how funny that they sing every time Crake is mentioned! Oh my, now Toby has to eat that uncooked fish! But it wears a bit thin at the 50th installment. Atwood attempts to mine a bigger meaning out of this storyline with one of the Crakers eventually learning to communicate himself, through Toby teaching him writing and storytelling. Near as I can figure, this is about the biggest message she is trying to deliver through the entire series. Something about the importance of communication maybe? Or education? What?? When did this become an after school special??

And let's be honest. What was so compelling about Oryx and Crake, and Year of the Flood, was the way you could really believe every single terrifying thing that happens in this genetically modified universe. And, you met some very human characters trying to cope with this world despite all their very real and relatable flaws. See my review of Oryx and Crake and Year of the Flood for more detail on why I love this. But in the end? (view spoiler)Sorry, I'm just not buying that, Margaret. Too much. Not to mention the detail someone else here already mentioned-- come on. ALL of the characters knew each other in former lives? And they just so happen to be among the couple dozen humans who survived the plague? WHAT A COINCIDENCE.

I think my greatest disappointment in this story was that the final conflict in this story did not center around the complex new values or morals that would surely need to evolve after such a harrowing chapter in human history. Nor the difficulties that these very real characters would surely face in having to articulate and shape these new value systems in this new world. No. Instead all we got was (view spoiler)

This is probably the least coherent review I've ever written here but this is what I think: don't read this book. I don't feel any less enthusiastic about Oryx and Crake or Year of the Flood but I'd like to just pretend this last one isn't a part of the series. I expected so much more.

Did I read this voraciously? Yes. Every night. Did I enjoy it? Sure. I didn't hate it. Can I recommend it? No I cannot. ...more

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Jul 20, 2013 Cecily rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: dystopian, canada-and-usa, miscellaneous-fiction

Why?

I read this because I enjoy Atwood's varied writing, I like reading dystopian and speculative fiction, and the the preceding two books in this trilogy were excellent, in different ways.

#1 Oryx and Crake reviewed here 4*: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
#2 Year of the Flood reviewed here 4*: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
#3 MaddAddam only 2*.

I read each within a year or so of publication and didn't know it was planned as a trilogy until I finished the second. The first ...more

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Aug 17, 2013 Michael rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction, post-apocalyptic, genetic-engineering, science-fiction

I delighted in this “Back to the Future” visit to the post-apocalyptic world populated a few human survivors of a man-made plague. In essence, the first in the series, “Oryx and Crake”, focused on the motive and method by which Crake caused the plague and led the creation of a genetically modified form of human, who like bonobos are dedicated to making love not war and can live by grazing kudzu. “The Year of the Flood” focused on the aftermath of the plague and the survival efforts of an I delighted in this “Back to the Future” visit to the post-apocalyptic world populated a few human survivors of a man-made plague. In essence, the first in the series, “Oryx and Crake”, focused on the motive and method by which Crake caused the plague and led the creation of a genetically modified form of human, who like bonobos are dedicated to making love not war and can live by grazing kudzu. “The Year of the Flood” focused on the aftermath of the plague and the survival efforts of an eco-cult called the God’s Gardeners. In this tale, the Crakers and God’s Gardeners get together and set a path of life in the new circumstances.

Where we start here, about six months after the plague, a band of less than a dozen survivors are getting gardening and hunting under way in a hippie commune sort of society. There is little sense of trauma over loss of civilization or burden over their role of sustaining the human species. They had already written off the state of society before the disaster as unsustainable and corrupt; they already felt anointed with the task of initiated a new way of living. But despite these qualities that helped them be survivors, their concerns are surprisingly mundane. Finding seeds for missing crops, getting beekeeping established, scavenging toilet paper and tampons, finding some equity over who carries out onerous tasks, and dealing with jealousies over who is sleeping with whom.

Much of the story is from the perspective of Toby, a woman in her 40’s who is tough and practical, but also playful. She also has a soft heart for the Crakers, who rope her into telling them daily stories that satisfy their craving for myths to make sense of their world. At the start of this book she is getting into the swing of this role:
In the beginning, you lived inside the Egg. That’s where Crake made you. … /The Egg was big and round and white, like half a bubble, and there were trees inside it with leaves and grass and berries. All the things you like to eat. …/And all around the Egg was the chaos , with many, many people who were not like you. /And many of them were bad people who did cruel and hurtful things to one another, and also to the animals. …/And Crake watched over you./ Then one day Crake got rid of the chaos and the hurtful people, to make Oryx happy, and to clear a safe place for you to live in.

Yet there are some potent threats to their existence. Some former gangbangers have managed to survive too, and they want food and women. Also, feral pigs. genetically engineered with human cortex, are dangerously smart in groups, and they take exception to the vegans new taste for pork. Still, Atwood doesn’t milk these challenges very much. Instead, the focus is on the personal relationship of Toby and Zeb.

Their love relationship is the essence of what is worth saving. Zeb’s entertains her with stories of his past as a hacker on the run from his psychopathic father, an evangelical in the powerfully connected Church of PetrOleum. He saved his more intellectual brother, Adam, who eventually became MaddAddam/AdamOne, founder of God’s Gardeners. Atwood gives us a lot of fun with Zeb’s adventures and lingo, as in this interlude:
Hacksaw was located on a joyboat moored off Rio and posing as an anything-goes sex bazaar. …He spent a nervous four weeks on that deathstar working for a pod of seedy Russian pussy-smugglers who were tired of the whininess and bleediness and need-to-feed of their human merchandise and were aiming to supplement their income in ways that required less soft tissue. They put Zeb to work hacking into online PachinkoPoker for skimming purposes, and it was a mite stressful because—sad the other code slaves—the Hacksaw folk were known to heave you into the luminous krill if they thought you were taking too long unravelling the digital embroidery.

Always he is forced to keep on the lam:
They had a case for payback. … I’d fishfooded their guard, pilfered their boat, robinhooded one of their maidens in distress; but worse, I’d made them look sloppy.

I love the science fiction classics of people trying to retain and rebuild civilization after a world-wide disaster. The Cold War contributed to the power of that literature. These were filled with much drama in the guilt trip over what we humans did to ourselves, in fighting despair over loss of people and culture, and in desperate harnessing of the skills of plucky survivors to rebirth the human species. And in recent decades apocalyptic tales abound in the face of the ecological threats to the planet. But these tend toward thriller action, often with zombies thrown in (god knows why). You don’t expect Atwood to go that way. She doesn’t want her books shelved under “science fiction.” Instead, her tale here is more in line with those thought experiments of older literature that explore what core human values would persist when you leave ordinary society behind and anything goes. And in that sense her vision is feels hopeful that maybe we can learn from our mistakes, perhaps more in the vein of Robinson Crusoe and Huckleberry Finn than Lord of the Flies and The Heart of Darkness.
...more

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Sep 03, 2013 Ted rated it it was amazing

Shelves: dystopia, sci-fi, lit-canadian, have, beach-fun-fiction, reviews-liked, postmodern-lit

This is the story of a book. The book is called MaddAddam.

The book completes the story (in three books) of the making of the Great Emptiness in the world that we two-skins (clothes being our second skin) live in, the world of the twenty-first century. And how this world developed in the decades ahead of where we are now. (I have warned you that we are called two-skins in the story, at least by the new inhabitants of earth, but I will just call us people sometimes.)

That story of the world This is the story of a book. The book is called MaddAddam.

The book completes the story (in three books) of the making of the Great Emptiness in the world that we two-skins (clothes being our second skin) live in, the world of the twenty-first century. And how this world developed in the decades ahead of where we are now. (I have warned you that we are called two-skins in the story, at least by the new inhabitants of earth, but I will just call us people sometimes.)

That story of the world developing in the future had been told in parts of the first two books (Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood). It is told in more detail in MaddAddam, mostly by telling the story of Zeb.

Zeb was a character in the second book. Toby was also a character there, who found herself in love with Zeb. They become the two main characters in this last book of the story of the turning over and emptying of the world of its scourge, people.

Most of the Toby part of the story is told by a narrator. The Zeb part of the story is told by Zeb, as his own narrator. It is a story of both good and evil, and of much in between those extremes, most of the told things from those in-between parts eventually turning out more good than evil. That is because many of the in-between things are part of Zeb’s story, and Zeb is a man who was in the end much more good than bad.

The story in the book tells how bad the world made by the people had become by the end of our present century, less than a hundred years from now. It tells of how the corporations came to control everything, how the two-skins who worked for the corporations, and lived on gated and highly secure campuses, had it better than the others who didn’t, but not very much better because everyone was expendable.

Those others lived in the pleeblands. The pleeblands were talked about in the first two books, but again much more is told about them in MaddAddam. In the pleeblands most people (two-skins) live, and it is a very hard place to live. Any sort of crime can be committed, and usually no official response is made to it, as long as the crime only affects others in the pleeblands. Everyone is fair game for everyone else.

The story is also about the dying of the earth’s species, and the atmosphere being poisoned and heated up, and the way that the most powerful corporation, OilCorp, together with the church of PetrOleum, whose founder is perhaps the father of Zeb, does pretty much what they want, since the OilCorp and the various BioCorps have attained complete control of the media and even state security, now handled by CorpSeCorps.

There is some sadness in the book. This is skillfully done. It cleans your emotions. It is called catharsis.

But that is enough of my telling of the MaddAddam book. You must read it yourself if so want to explore this (fictional?) vision of the future. Whether the ultimate outcome of the story feels good or bad or indifferent depends on you.

The Year of the Flood (MaddAddam Trilogy, #2) https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Oryx and Crake (MaddAddam Trilogy, #1) https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... (pretty worthless review - but very short!)
...more

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Sep 28, 2013 Rebecca rated it it was ok

Shelves: read-in-2013

I seem to be in the minority here, but I...very much did not love this. I mean, a disappointing Margaret Atwood book is still better than most other things published, but this was not at all the conclusion to the series I was hoping for.

(view spoiler) I seem to be in the minority here, but I...very much did not love this. I mean, a disappointing Margaret Atwood book is still better than most other things published, but this was not at all the conclusion to the series I was hoping for.

(view spoiler)

Moral of the story: Read Oryx and Crake, for it is excellent, then pretend the sequels don't exist. The Year of the Flood was wonderful, too, but reading it will probably make you want to read the third. Resist the impulse. It's not worth it. ...more

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May 23, 2013 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it really liked it

Shelves: sci-fi-fantasy, read2013, audiobook, post-apocalypse-and-dystopia

"There's the story, then there's the real story, then there's the story of how the story came to be told. Then there's what you leave out of the story. Which is part of the story too."

Preach, Mother Atwood. This past week has had me reimmersed into the MaddAddam trilogy, starting with a fifth re-read of Oryx and Crake since we discussed it for an SFF Audio podcast. (That was a great discussion, by the way. It answered some questions that I've had for years. Years!)

When you read all the books of ...more

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Jan 04, 2014 Melissa rated it did not like it

Shelves: notworthit, she-and-or-they-but-not-he

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Oh my. Ouch. I’m not quite sure what my biggest disappointment is about this book. Is it that brave, bad-ass, bitchin’ Toby becomes sleeping-with-Zeb Toby, who does nothing except whine, pine, and be jealous of every single women who has ever been in proximity to Zeb through the course of his life? Is it the maddening, contraction-less Craker stories, a clumsy plot device that culminates in the obtuse cultivation of an Oh-Fuck myth? Is it that the relationship between Adam & Zeb breaks ...more

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Apr 29, 2016 ·Karen· rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: canada

It's already happening!
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-36437428

I've said it before, but that won't stop me saying it again: Atwood writes real people, which in my (admittedly extremely limited) experience of speculative fiction is as rare as a butterfly in an Arctic wind tunnel.
A completely satisfying conclusion to the trilogy, which gives the fast-paced back story of MaddAddam and edges the action forward to the final confrontation between the goodies and the baddies. There is an utterly amazing ...more

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Jan 22, 2013 Regina rated it really liked it

Shelves: post-apocalyptic, favorite-series, favorite-authors, arc-publisher-netgalley-edelweiss, literature, pre-ordered

Really great conclusion to an amazing trilogy. Atwood is a goddess of literature.

Ten years after the release of the first book in the Maddaddam trilogy (Oryx and Crake) and four years after the release of the second book in the trilogy (Year of the Flood), Margaret Atwood releases the final book in her apocalyptic/post-apocalypse series – Maddaddam. When Atwood first released Oryx and Crake, the post-apocalypse wasn’t as fun and romanticized as it is right now – hard to imagine I know but ….: Really great conclusion to an amazing trilogy. Atwood is a goddess of literature.

Ten years after the release of the first book in the Maddaddam trilogy (Oryx and Crake) and four years after the release of the second book in the trilogy (Year of the Flood), Margaret Atwood releases the final book in her apocalyptic/post-apocalypse series – Maddaddam. When Atwood first released Oryx and Crake, the post-apocalypse wasn’t as fun and romanticized as it is right now – hard to imagine I know but ….: the Walking Dead was not yet on TV, Red Dawn had not yet been remade, and main stream romance publishing houses weren’t regularly releasing post-apocalypse romance themed books. I think it is fair to say that in 2003, the apocalypse was not yet the rage. It is interesting that when the series ends, Maddaddam finds itself nestled on bookshelves next to other mainstream and best sellers that deal with the what-happens-when-society-collapses. Atwood is a visionary. But Maddaddam and the trilogy is not just about the collapse of society, it is about so much more.

Each book in the trilogy is told form a different point of view and at a different point in time, yet it is the same story and the same characters. The entire story is told in the present, but it is done with memory and flashbacks of the characters. Each book is about the time before the collapse of the world’s society and each book is also about the time after the societal collapse.

There are no zombies, no aliens, no floods and the moon didn’t fall out of the sky. Instead Atwood’s book (and series) is really a critique of what she sees as a major movement in our culture and our world – corporate control and dominance. Can you imagine a world where the corporations call the shots? Where the governments are so weakened that the corporations are the ones truly running things? What if the motivation to earn profit by those at the top of the corporation is what ruled the world? And these corporations controlled all scientific endeavors and the production of all food? Hmmmmmm ….. These are the topics explored by the Maddaddam trilogy and Atwood does this with really well developed characters, an amazingly intricately built (but believable) future world. Atwood began writing about this topic in the early 2000s. She is such a visionary (yes I have written that word twice now in this review — but remember her book The Handmaid’s Tale?, yeah she is brilliant).

But it is also about relationships with our fathers and mothers. It is about sexuality, desire and how gender roles are constructed. The series takes on concepts of the building of myth and religion. And it is also funny.

Rebecca’s having a cup of what they’ve all agreed to call coffee.

But you know what it is not? The post-apocalypse is not fun and it is not romantic. In Atwood’s imagined world, there is no coffee, there is no abundant supplies free for the taking and even with the majority of the population gone it is hard to find food. Empty buildings are dangerous as untended electrical wires and water pipes often mal-function causing fires and flooding. City centers can be filled with tainted water and structurally unsound buildings due to lack of human maintenance. Without family members around to support us and no hope for the future, motivation is hard to maintain:

Daytime becomes irrelevant. You can get careless, you can overlook details, you can lose track. These days she’ll find herself upright, in the middle of the room, one sandal in her hand, wondering how she got there; or outside under a tree, watching the leaves riffle, then prodding herself: Move. Move now. Get moving. You need to …. But what exactly is it that she needs to do?

I would categorize this series as both literary fiction and science fiction. Readers who enjoy Margaret Atwood books or readers who read science fiction/post-apocalypse books to think about broader concepts beyond just the story would enjoy this trilogy. Fans of the first two books may be slightly disappointed by the beginning of Maddaddam, but stick with it. The story does start slow and has a different feel but it is very rewarding and addicting. ...more

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Oct 19, 2013 Madeline rated it really liked it

Shelves: science-fiction

“And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. …And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. …And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou “And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. …And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. …And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. …Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked”
-Book of Geneis, King James Bible

There’s something that has always bothered me about the Bible’s version of the Adam and Eve story, and of the fall of Eve. It bothered me when I first read the story in Sunday school, it bothered me when my AP English class in high school studied Genesis, and it continues to bother me to this day: God tells Adam not to eat from the tree of life, because if he does he’ll die. The devil comes to Eve and tells her that if she eats from the tree of life, her eyes will be opened. Adam and Eve eat the fruit, realize they’re naked, and God expels them from the garden. They don’t die from eating the fruit like God told them they would. So, what can we take from this?

God lied, and the devil told the truth.

What are we supposed to make of this? The god who created us also lied to us, and the devil who damned us opened our eyes to the truth.

This all a long-winded way of saying that the Margaret Atwood’s Maddaddam trilogy is a futuristic version of the story of Adam and Eve, and it’s fucking brilliant. She’s not just reimagining the creation myth in a science fiction (sorry, Ms. Atwood, speculative fiction), she’s reconciling religion and science, and showing us a world where they not only coexist, but one cannot exist without the other.

Look at the God’s Gardeners, who have made conservation of Earth’s resources gospel, and whose saints are scientists and environmental activists. And the “waterless flood” that the Gardeners predict is caused by Crake, unleashing a pill-induced plague on the world to cleanse it. The miracles here are purely scientific, and no less miraculous because of it.

And then there are the Crakers. They’re created by Crake in a controlled, safe environment (literally “Paradice”), intended to be the new, perfect breed of humans to replace the messed-up beta version. Once Crake’s waterless flood devastates the human population (although not nearly as effectively as he wanted it to – even God screws things up), the Crakers are expelled into the real world, which is supposed to serve as a new Eden for them. Jimmy, the prophet chosen by Crake to guide his creations, keeps the Crakers happy with lies and omissions, creating gospel about their benevolent gods, Oryx and Crake. He tells them that Crake communicates only with him (and commands that the Crakers provide Jimmy with food) and tells them only the simplest stories, with the fewest opportunities for questions.

It’s only when the surviving humans, the remnants of the God’s Gardeners, mix with the Crakers that things get messy. With Jimmy too sick to tell stories to the Crakers, Toby takes over the job. Remember in Oryx and Crake, when Jimmy decided that he shouldn’t give the Crakers a detailed origin story for Crake because it would result in too many questions? Toby tells the Crakers how their god was born, and now they have conflicting creation stories. Which version is gospel? Even more dangerous, Toby teaches one of the Crakers how to read and write. So the Crakers, who had previously been kept in happy ignorance, now possess knowledge. Their eyes have been opened. Their faith is still unshaken, but the reader has seen what Crake does behind the scenes. Even if the Crakers haven’t figured it out yet, the reader knows that, like in the story of Adam and Eve, God is a liar.

The difference, of course, is that the Crakers’ gods – Crake and Oryx – were physical people. There are worse things than discovering that your creator was psychotic. What would have happened if Adam and Eve had done as the Crakers do in this book, and returned to Eden to find God’s rotting corpse on the ground? Maddaddam answers this question, and shows us how the Adam and Eve story would pan out in the brave new world that Margaret Atwood has created.

Sure, there are things that I wish would have been explored in further detail – those who, like me, were hoping for some concrete answers about Oryx and her backstory will be disappointed, and there are still large gaps in Crake’s story. This can be frustrating, especially since the first book in the trilogy focused so heavily on the pair, and the mysteries surrounding them. But, I realize, the first book was something of a misdirect. This isn’t Crake’s story, it’s the story of his creations. It was always the Craker’s story.
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Oct 06, 2013 Gary the Bookworm rated it really liked it

MaddAddam is the final installment in what has come to be known as the MaddAddam Trilogy. Margaret Atwood refers to it as a piece of speculative fiction because "...it does not include any technologies or biobeings that do not already exist, are under construction, or are not possible in theory." It can be read and admired on its own terms, but a reader unfamiliar with her earlier works, Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood, would be wise to at least read their Wikipedia entries before MaddAddam is the final installment in what has come to be known as the MaddAddam Trilogy. Margaret Atwood refers to it as a piece of speculative fiction because "...it does not include any technologies or biobeings that do not already exist, are under construction, or are not possible in theory." It can be read and admired on its own terms, but a reader unfamiliar with her earlier works, Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood, would be wise to at least read their Wikipedia entries before reading this. I'm not a big fan of dystopian or speculative fiction, but whenever Atwood speaks, I listen. Her imagination is persuasively perverse and her prose is laced with dynamic lyricism.

The MaddAddamites are survivors, in a not-so-brave new world, after Crake, a new-age Dr. Frankenstein, devised and deployed a virus that led to a pandemic which destroyed much of the human race. He thoughtfully created Crakers, a genetically-engineered species of leaf-eaters, who reminded me of Sesame Street's Big Bird, to replace humans, and inoculated his childhood friend to look after them. Crake first met Jimmy in one the fascistic corporate compounds, where the "chosen" worked and lived before the purge, while the rest of society was relegated to a chaotic and toxic wasteland. Led by Toby and Zeb, the survivalists drape themselves in bed sheets, glean essential supplies from nearby urban wreckage and live in fear of a couple of sadistic, barely-human painballers, who crave their supplies and covet the women.

Ms. Atwood's imagined world echoes our own in ways that are unsettling, yet reassuringly hopeful. She is deadly serious about the impact and potential consequences of unchecked environmental pillage, unregulated corporate malfeasance and destructive religious hypocrisy. She expresses this outrage evocatively through the thoughts and actions of her memorable, relatable characters: they are humanly fallible, yet adaptable and, occasionally, even heroic in their struggle to create a new social order. I laughed a lot, shed more than a few tears, and gave thanks repeatedly for a writer as gifted as Margaret Atwood.

Recent review in The Economist
http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospe... ...more

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Sep 09, 2013 Lynn rated it it was amazing

It's impossible to recommend this book without recommending the entire trilogy, which I do with enthusiasm. Not many of my friends are interested in dystopian literature and I understand that -- you really have to dig to find the best of the genre. However, as the author has pointed out, everything in the series is plausible as an extension of things that already exist in our world today -- gene splicing, technology, mind and body altering techniques, surveillance et al. But what makes it all so ...more

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Mar 08, 2016 BrokenTune rated it liked it

Shelves: reviewed

2.5*

This is a combined review of the trilogy. Well, not so much a review as just a few thoughts.

"But hatred and viciousness are addictive. You can get high on them. Once you've had a little, you start shaking if you don't get more."

When Oryx & Crake was first published, I could not put it down. It was my first Atwood, none of my friends knew about her (I was still at uni at the time) and people thought I was on the crazy train when it didn't win the Booker.

Strangely, my impressions of Oryx ...more

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May 13, 2013 Hanneke rated it really liked it

I totally agree to Paquita Maria Sanchez' review of July 2014. Margaret Atwood has been one of my favorite authors for a long time, so it almost hurts me to say that I would have rated MaddAddam only 3 stars for most of the book. I mean, how many witty wisecracks can a person handle when nothing substantial is happening story-wise? The ending was wonderful though. If mankind's fate would unfold in this way, I find it a very comforting idea. So, Margaret, thanks for that truly uplifting ending! ...more

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Dec 03, 2013 Katie rated it really liked it

After finishing this book, I read both the good and bad reviews to help sort out my own thinking on Margaret Atwood's conclusion to the 'Oryx and Crake' trilogy. There is truth in the bad reviews. If I was expecting the deep and complicated world of 'Oryx and Crake' or the 'Year of the Flood' to continue in this novel, I would be disappointed. If I wanted to continue getting to know the previous main characters (Jimmy, Ren, Amanda or Toby), I would be sad how one dimensional or not at all After finishing this book, I read both the good and bad reviews to help sort out my own thinking on Margaret Atwood's conclusion to the 'Oryx and Crake' trilogy. There is truth in the bad reviews. If I was expecting the deep and complicated world of 'Oryx and Crake' or the 'Year of the Flood' to continue in this novel, I would be disappointed. If I wanted to continue getting to know the previous main characters (Jimmy, Ren, Amanda or Toby), I would be sad how one dimensional or not at all present the characters have suddenly become. In 'MaddAddam," Atwood does not give us the conclusion we have been wanting.

She gives us something better.

In the previous two books, Atwood shows the destruction of a world through two different viewpoints. In 'Oryx and Crake', we see the world inside the corporate compounds and are drawn close to the master of the apocalypse, Glenn/Crake, through the narrative of his childhood friend, Jimmy. In the 'Year of the Flood', the world is further explored outside the compounds, in the black market free-for-all known as the Pleeblands through a resistant movement known as God's Gardeners. As the story concludes in 'The Year of the Flood', the characters in two seemingly unrelated stories turn out to be very intertwined through their pasts and are joined up again in the present, post-apocalyptic world. As it turns out, even the dystopic world is a little too small for comfort.

For most readers, myself included, the anticipation leading up to the release of 'MaddAddam' is the question as to how these characters will deal with their sudden re-acquaintance as well as to continue living in the pre-virus world of the past. This expectation toward drama and conclusion is precisely what Atwood refuses to deliver in the third book of her trilogy. After I get over my own frustration at not receiving what I wanted/expected, I realize that Atwood's approach moves the story much further forward, and offers a stronger and fuller message than if she were to stick with the approach present in the previous books. This is why:

1. The world the previous characters have known has ended. As much as I want to go back, as a reader, and continue exploring the corruption, greed and violence that led to the present collapse, it is pointless. I have already been back in that world twice. If this book seems to lack the intricate plot and complex characters of the previous two, is it perhaps because the day ins and outs of survival can be boring?

2. The questions the characters (and the readers) are struggling to understand are unanswerable. Why did Crake kill Oryx? What were the motivations and reasons behind Crake's destruction of humankind? What happened to all the other characters that didn't survive? Why did they have to die? Are they still out there somewhere? To be given conclusion to these questions would not be honest to the present world the characters are struggling through. Crake is dead and unfortunately, he didn't write his motivations into a journal. Families with a missing loved one rarely receive conclusive news that their husband/wife/child is in fact dead. This is one of the reasons this dystopia is so believable. Just like us in everydaylife, the characters in 'MaddAddam' have to deal with the frustratingly unanswerable and choose what to do moving forward (if they do, in fact, chose to move forward).

3. Finally, and perhaps the most important reason why Atwood's approach with this book and reader expectations is incredibly well crafted: this is not a story about Jimmy, Toby, Ren, Amanda or any of the other previous characters we have know and may or may not have loved. Everything we need to understand these characters has been given in the previous two books. Their stories are about the ending of the world that they knew and their luck (or unluck) at ending up in the present time of post-apocalypse. 'MaddAddam' is about the future, about life after the dust settles, about the building of mythology and culture, and the adaptability of humankind and the strength to move forward even in the midst of extinction and tragedy.

The more I think about what Atwood is doing in this novel, the more I love it. There is beauty in the simplicity. The exchanges between the survivors and the Crakers is hilarious and endearing. Atwood captures the irritating frustration adults sometimes feel when faced with the insatiable 'why' of a child piecing together their world. Her skill in first building a complicated world falling apart and then speculating how to see that world through the new eyes of a different culture is brilliant.

As others have mentioned, this is not a stand-alone book. You will need to read the previous two books to gain the backstory on the characters and the plot. I enjoyed this book and highly recommend the whole trilogy to anyone who likes dystopia or speculative fiction.
...more

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Sep 22, 2013 Cynthia rated it really liked it

Shelves: books-read-in-2013

Before I read this book I read or reread “Oryx and Crake” and “The Year of the Flood”. If I hadn’t I don’t know that I’d have understood or been as interested in “MaddAdam”. It’s not a stand alone book in my opinion. I thought the trilogy overall was good though I’d rate “Oryx” three stars and “Flood” as five stars. “MaddAdam” had some great parts and some slow parts, mostly the sections where Atwood ‘told’ rather than showed the action. The parts concerning the storytelling to the Crakers ...more

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Sep 15, 2013 Jeff rated it did not like it

MaddAddam was a dismal end to the MaddAddam trilogy - a very disappointing book by a very distinguished writer. Oryx and Crake was a wonderful book: a story of sweeping scope, lyrically written and character that were unforgettable. Year of the Flood drove the story to new levels, gave depth to the parable and, again, created some wonderful characters (Zeb, Toby and Adam) to join Oryx, Crake and Jimmy from the Crake book.

MaddAddam does nothing to extend the story; the characters are drab, ...more

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Jun 24, 2016 Sarah rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audio

Damn this was a brilliant series :) I'm tempted to give this five stars because the whole thing was so satisfying overall. But alas, this rating is for this book only.

I'm so glad that I finished this series, despite the fact that I wasn't totally blown away by Oryx & Crake. It's really a good series and it takes reading all three to get the whole picture. Brilliant triology, brilliant audio, brilliant narration. I just loved it.

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Aug 27, 2013 Mag rated it it was amazing

Shelves: canadian, speculative-fiction

An interesting foray into the nature of religion, myth making, genetic revolution and the ideas of the Noble Savage. Communing with nature and depths of one’s consciousness included. I enjoyed this part very much, probably more than the other two. It's intelligent, funny and poignant in places. Granted, you have to suspend belief, but it’s the same way you have to suspend belief when reading Murakami’s 1Q84.

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Oct 04, 2013 Brid-Aine rated it it was ok

Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam trilogy has asked us to ignore some pretty blatant coincidences in its effort to extend from a first standalone novel to an ongoing series, the most onerous of which is to believe that quite a lot of people who all knew each other managed to survive an apocalypse and then run into each other after. Characters may have been far-flung, estranged or just plain unlikely to survive, but regardless, they manage to evade a human-race-threatening event and also find each Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam trilogy has asked us to ignore some pretty blatant coincidences in its effort to extend from a first standalone novel to an ongoing series, the most onerous of which is to believe that quite a lot of people who all knew each other managed to survive an apocalypse and then run into each other after. Characters may have been far-flung, estranged or just plain unlikely to survive, but regardless, they manage to evade a human-race-threatening event and also find each other on the other side. Since the novels run in two timelines, past and present, it helps matters a lot when folks you met in one character's telling of the past pop up in another's or in a third character's future. And because you get the sense that the novels are much more interested in the world they're describing than the people (with the possible exception of Oryx and Crake's Snowman/Jimmy), it's been possible, if not entirely comfortable, to let go of unlikelihood of this bunch of people's good fortune. However, that falls down in MaddAddam when (SPOILER) Zeb shows up, as a mouthpiece for Adam's past and one half of a central love story with The Year of the Flood's main protagonist Toby.

Coincidence that's already been stretched as thin as the finest gourmet filo pastry finally snaps with the arrival of Zeb, particularly since his relationship with Toby also seems very unlikely. In the previous book, Toby entertained ideas of Zeb that seemed no more than a passing interest. In this one, the relationship takes centre-stage and it feels like that moment in the third movie of a trilogy where you realise that the new director has decided that the story just "needs" a love connection. It's a manufactured happy ending that feels false from the beginning, so much so that even Toby has her doubts about the whole thing. And in a way, this shoehorned romance sums up what's wrong with the whole book. Elements that were uncomfortable in The Year of the Flood - the unlikely coincidences, the shallow characterisations and frequently clunky plot points - are now unbearable in a third installment.

The world that Atwood's created is still fascinating, clever and funny, full of satirical pokes and parodies of our own lives like the cult preacher whose sexual deviancies run to visceral re-enactments of historical female torture like the beheading of Mary, Queen of Scots - "feel this hot red-head spurt!". But while thinning plot material and broad stroke characters could be ignored for a little while, they can't be ignored forever.

The only thing that shines in MaddAddam is the Crakers, the genetically-engineered human beings created in an effort to fix everything that's wrong with the humans the world's already got. A deeper understanding of their emerging culture (despite Crake's attempts to stop them from having one) provide the most interesting sections of the book and the idea that they would be able to talk to the Pigoons - genetic splices of humans and pigs - is exploited for both funny and discomfiting episodes.

Even the smiling, singing Crakers can't save the whole book though. While MaddAddam is still an enjoyable read, it fails to live up to the promise of Oryx and Crake. The supposedly climactic face-off battle is inexplicably abandoned halfway through and then finished off in a flashback that also includes a wishy-washy happily ever after round-up for the remaining survivors - a disappointing end to a disappointing finale. ...more

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Apr 21, 2013 Jennifer (aka EM) rated it really liked it

Shelves: maple-flavoured

Four stars for now as a place-holder, as that was my rating for the other two (for some strange reason). The trilogy overall, though, is an absolute five. A stunning vision; exceptional execution; provocative themes about greed and ethics, environmental degradation, out-of-control technology ... and maybe a shred of optimism for humanity, such as it is or will be [I'm hoping that someone is working on the Crakers in a lab somewhere]. An upvote for resilience and hope, at least in the short term. Four stars for now as a place-holder, as that was my rating for the other two (for some strange reason). The trilogy overall, though, is an absolute five. A stunning vision; exceptional execution; provocative themes about greed and ethics, environmental degradation, out-of-control technology ... and maybe a shred of optimism for humanity, such as it is or will be [I'm hoping that someone is working on the Crakers in a lab somewhere]. An upvote for resilience and hope, at least in the short term.

I know most people thought the previous two, Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood - the latter in particular - stronger, but I don't know: this one grabbed me and really packed an emotional punch. I think, perhaps, it was the innocence-versus-corruption theme throughout that captured my heart. Also, the drive for story-telling and mythmaking, reinforced thematically and structurally: the critical importance that telling our stories, documenting them, passing them on being all we have to (re)create meaning and provide comfort in a world that is otherwise dark and empty. "People need such stories, Pilar said once, because however dark, a darkness with voices in it is better than a silent void."

Maybe being the last in the trilogy, MaddAddam also gets high marks for the resolution: a strange mix of resigned sadness, more like grief, and hope. (view spoiler)

The idea that we are oil-barrelling blindly down a road towards this--and that it is too late to stop or swerve--is absolutely fundamental here, as in the earlier two. The details are so specific and so current (fracking in Calgary and pipelines in the Arctic, e.g.) we cannot fail to recognize them. Atwood's postscript emphasizing that everything she describes is part of today's technology or at the least theoretically possible is chilling. And she doesn't need to tell us that - the sense of familiarity and of the inevitable, looming plausibility of it all is visceral.

Atwood leaves us here at the end of this trilogy with enough ambiguity and open-endedness that some interpretation is required; enough to prevent our complacency, perhaps. There may be no hope that we can prevent our fall, but overall, the pigoons and the Crakers and the stories being passed on is maybe enough for our regeneration.

Thank you. Good night.
...more

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About Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood

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Margaret Atwood was born in 1939 in Ottawa and grew up in northern Ontario, Quebec, and Toronto. She received her undergraduate degree from Victoria College at the University of Toronto and her master's degree from Radcliffe College.

Throughout her writing career, Margaret Atwood has received numerous awards and honourary degrees. She is the author of more than thirty-five volumes of poetry, ...more